1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and method, and to a distribution medium. More particularly, the present invention relates to an information processing apparatus and method suitable for managing files and for managing access to a variety of information, and to a distribution medium therefor.
2. Description of the Related Art
Hitherto, as a technique for managing files created by a computer user, for example, there is a technique for hierarchically storing files using folders. For example, an example of the display of a screen when a user creates a “MEMO” file on a computer and the created “MEMO” file is stored (recorded on a hard disk in a HDD (Hard Disk Drive)) in, for example, a “My Documents” folder is described with reference to FIGS. 27 to 29.
On a PC (Personal Computer), when a user starts up an OS (for example, commonly-known Windows 95 or Windows 98 (trademarks) of Microsoft Corporation), etc., for example, a desktop screen (hereinafter also referred to simply as a “screen”) such as that shown in FIG. 27 is displayed. In FIG. 27, when a user operates a pointing device, such as a mouse, and clicks on, for example, a “My Computer” icon 151 on the upper left of the screen, a screen such as that shown in FIG. 28 is displayed.
On the screen of FIG. 28, in the “My Computer” icon 151, an A drive icon 161 for a 3.5-inch FDD (Floppy Disk Drive), a C drive icon 162 for a HDD, a D drive icon 163 for a CD-ROM (Compact Disk-Read Only Memory) drive, a printer icon 164, etc., are stored. When the user operates the pointing device in order to click the C drive icon 162 and further clicks on the “My Documents” folder (not shown) of a layer below, a screen such as that shown in FIG. 29 is displayed.
On the screen of FIG. 29, a “MEMO” file (document file) icon 172 that the user has created and stored, a “1998.10.20” folder icon 171 in which year/month/day is used as a folder name, and for example, a “China” file (document file) icon 173, which is a material about China, are stored in the “My Documents” folder.
However, in the above-mentioned technique, it is required that a user determines which folder a file created by the user should be stored in, and this is burdensome.
Also, for example, as a file management technique in which “Chou Seiri Hou (Ultra Management Technique)” (Chuko Sinsho (small-sized paperback book), written by Yukio Noguchi) is applied, a technique in which the creation year/month/day is used as a folder name like the “1998.10.20” folder icon 171 of FIG. 29, and a created file is stored therein has been proposed. However, it is difficult to accurately perform this technique.
Furthermore, as can be understood from the screen of FIG. 29, since the number of icons which can be placed on the desktop screen is limited due to the limitation of the screen size, when the number of icons is large, management is difficult.
In addition, there is also a problem in that when the above-mentioned application programs which handle files, folders, and other various types of data differ from each other, access and retrieval of these files, folders, and various types of data become very complex. For example, in an operation in which “it is desired to reproduce the state of the desktop at the time a particular piece of electronic mail was received and to access a file of a work being processed at that time” or “it is desired to retrieve an image photographed when a particular text was being written”, an operation of several stages extending across a plurality of application programs is required, and this is complex.